I've always thought it's a shame how little compatibility the shadow step has with the flurry of blows. The shadow step is great because it works for both attacking and escaping, the only flaw is the dim light or darkness zone. Another thing I have always found unfortunate is the fact that it cannot see in the magical darkness.
It never bothered me because I almost never use FOB. I think it is rare that FOB is worth the cost in ki, when you can just use martial arts instead for free. It is basically a ki for one martial arts attack.
Not being able to see in the darkness you cast is a big hinderance certainly.
One thing I do not see used enough on Monks is patient defense. People say Monks can't tank, but if you are in tier 2, say at 6th level, with a 17 AC and disadvantage you are pretty hard to hit, and with 6ki nominally lasting 2 battles before a short rest that means most of the time you can be dodging if you use your ki for patient defense instead of FOB. That is without anything else to boost AC.
The problem with the dodge is that you need to be a threat for them to try to hit you. If you are doing little damage with just two attacks with at best a d8+dex weapon...you aren't really doing much damage and aren't really a threat.
The only time you become a threat is if you are attempting to stun...which means you NEED to stun to make yourself juicy but then you are burning Ki left and right (ki to stun and ki to dodge) and you are going to run out fast.
Overall monk needs more control options at the point of attack as a base class. Subclass should add some for sure but I like how PF2e does it and simply forgoes a "subclass" for monk and gives you a bunch of stances/control attacks/etc... to make you dangerous. Also what I love about PF2e monk is that stunning fist is automatic if you strike the same target with all your attacks which is amazing....I wish stunning strike was less strong but proc'd automatically if you used both attacks from your attack action on the same target or both attacks on the BA FoB target.
I would generally not agree with this, mostly because of chokepoints and AOOs. You can usually make it very hard to move past a character in melee, and if you are tanking that is mostly what you are trying to do. Further stunning strike is always an option to use and can be used on an AOO as well. An AOO is both free damage and a potential for stunning strike. Even if then Monk can't just block movement, he can still slow it down by making enemies move through other enemy spaces (which count as difficult terrain).
Looking at a 6th level Monk with an 18 dexterity (+7 attack, +4 damage) and d8 weapon - if you cause an AOO and have a 15 AC average damage is 17.3 DPR (2 attacks plus AOO). A 6th level fighter with a maul, GWF, an 16 strength and GWM feat and 2 attacks per turn is averaging 18.3 and will be easier to hit most of the time. So it is 1 point difference and that is using no ki. Given the higher initiative I think the Monk will actually generally play better in this in general because he is more likely to move first and get into the position he wants to be in. Now if the enemy does not cause an AOO, then yes does substantially less damage, but he is also harder to hit most of the time.
To really turn this argument upside down - we hear about how AC is poor Monks (and it is), but if they are not a threat then they won't be attacked .... in which case low AC is irrelevant.
If you are theater of the mind and not rigorously applying movement and distance perhaps I would agree to a degree, but in play with any sort of map I would not agree with this at all. Most of the time for melee focused enemies it is more a choice of who you CAN attack vs who you WANT to attack.
But what is the threat from taking an AoO from a monk? your single attack is weak damage and then you can ATTEMPT a stun but its not sure to work and once again burning ki.
17 dpr is very bad damage....like bottom tier damage for a martial at that level. A rouge is doing that fairly easily with no resource spend and can just...leave if they want with BA disengage. A warlock with just EB + agonizing is beating that most of the time. As a monk at this level you have 6 ki which is hardly anything...
A smart enemy will just ignore you if you dodge and attack your friends because you pose no real threat with your weak dpr with just the basic attack action.
And the whole "use it when it makes sense" argument is kinda...weird? Because your opportunity cost to using a dodge or dash as a bonus action is stunning strike...and its just better most of the time. Shutting down a whole enemy turn>>>>>>>DIS on attacks against just you. Technically you can do both but thats just going to burn your ki.
Overall monk suffers from this "jack of all trades, master of none" approach to combat as they can do a lot of things ok but nothing good. They are mediocre damage (just bad after level 11), poor tanks (low hp, AC compared to martials, no real reason to attack them), and their mobility is good...but what do you do with it? Their only strength is stunning strike but it hamstrings you into just using it and saving ki to attempt it all the time.
Also the difference to other things that reliably give enemies disadvantage is that the BA dodge still only works for one round and you just can't know whether you actually get attacked (and hit) during that round or not. It's far far more likely that you waste your resources and part of your action economy than other classes just casting Blur or whatever. In my experience spamming the BA dodge is the fastest way to waste all your Ki points for little to no gain as Monk.
The math does not support this argument.
To start with, Blur is an action so that is an unfair comparison unless you can get it off with metamagic. It is also a 2nd level slot and there is no level where any class will have more 2nd level slots a day than a monk has ki per day or even any level where blur using 2nd level slots will generally cause disadvantage for more rounds of combat than ki will (considering short rests). Even if you do not consider truesight, you are still behind because you never have more than 3 2nd level slots. While blur can last more than 1 round, it never lasts more than one fight (which typically is 4 rounds), it never can be cast more than 3 times a day and it ends early on a failed con save. Unless you upcast it, blur will cover you for 3 fights a day MAX, even at 20th level, so that is in general 12 rounds of disadvantage per day. A Monk has enough ki to beat that at any level after 4th.
As far as burning your ki; goes: "Spamming" patient defense at level 6 will mean you are dodging most of the time as a Monk. It takes 6 rounds to use 6 ki on patient defense, so that is 6 rounds per short rest you are dodging. Most combats last 3-5 rounds and generally RAW you should average 2 combats per SR (although there are more tables below this baseline than above it). So if you assume 8 rounds of combat per SR, that means if you are "spamming" patient defense and using it every round it should be active about 75% of the time while you are in combat at 6th level and this goes up after that. At 10th level if you "spam" PD, on average enemies will ALWAYS have disadvantage after your first turn in combat. After 10th level, if you use it every single turn and stick to the guidelines on SRs, you will usually not run out, even using it every turn.
That said I would not suggest that you should "spam" patient defense every tunr. You can usually (not always) predict when you are likely to be attacked or at the very least when are likely to be targeted by multiple attacks. If you need to plug a hole and tank, then yes use patient defense, if you have blur use that. Or better yet use an action to cast mirror image and then use PD. That is what those abilities/spells are for.
When it comes to ki, you should use patient defense when it makes sense to use patient defense, you should use step of the wind when it makes sense to use step of the wind, you should use flurry of blows when that makes sense, you should use stunning strike or any of your resources when it makes sense to use them.
My base point here is people tend to use flurry of blows A LOT, even though it very RARELY makes sense to use it and it is almost NEVER a better use of ki than PD is. There are occasions when FOB is a better use than PD, but that is very rare. Patient defense in general is a far better use of your ki, particularly when you spend it wisely based on the actual situation you are presented with.
If you purposely waste your ki, like most players do, that makes the class substantially weaker and that is why most players see this class as weak.
I mean you can math out a hypothetical adventuring day as much as you want, but in my experience I get a LOT more out of Blur or BA Disengage or a subclass ability than spending my valuable Ki points on a one turn BA dodge. Using it is in my experience the easiest and fastest way to "purposely waste your ki", even more so than spamming FOB. It's just not reliable enough for the opportunity cost and the literal cost.
Not to mention that you don't need to go out of a fight completely unharmed. If you already plan to take a short rest and have hit dice or other ways of healing left then it's fine to take some hits. Patient Defense is something you should use when you are completely out of options and more damage isn't going to save you but surviving one more round might (because your friends are there or so).
Agreed.... Dashing as a BA is generally better and will make better use of your speed and positioning much more than a dodge.
If I were playing with a monk as a martial I would try to bait reactions from creatures so the monk can speed off without AoO.
I play an Open Hand Monk and we are 13th as of now. So far my ability to get into the fray, strike a couple times (stunning when it makes sense) and/or use Patient Defense to lower my chances of being hit, I find I help mitigate damage from the actual tanks in our group. Giving the enemy more options of targets to hit mitigates damage numerically, spreading it out and helping the Fighter and Barbarian stay up (usually I pair with the Fighter and let the Barbarian deal with his own chaos) FoB at times, to either knock prone or knock back as best suits, and when it's really sketchy, use FoB on 2 targets, then walk away, having negated their reactions.
A lot of what I am reading through this thread comes off as people who look at the wording and such, but haven't yet actually played the class to much extent, thus don't see and experience how the dynamics work. Sure the Monk could use some polishing of features and abilities to be a little more efficient, but the level of negativity displayed leads me to believe a huge min/max mentality combined with a lack of actual experience is driving it.
Monks are lots of fun, offer a good variety of abilities and utility to the group and are just as useful and effective as any other skirmishing class. (Open Hand for sure, likely some other subclasses too)
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In casual play? Sure. Just about any class can fight in the front line if the combat isn't too hard.
But in groups that take combat more seriously, monks are not meant to be front line fighters.
Monks are meant to be skirmishers, going after opponents who need disrupting like mages and archers, distracting enemies to break up their formations, and escaping if they ever get in too against heavy melee opponents.
Whether or not monks are properly equipped for that task is another question.
I play an Open Hand Monk and we are 13th as of now. So far my ability to get into the fray, strike a couple times (stunning when it makes sense) and/or use Patient Defense to lower my chances of being hit, I find I help mitigate damage from the actual tanks in our group. Giving the enemy more options of targets to hit mitigates damage numerically, spreading it out and helping the Fighter and Barbarian stay up (usually I pair with the Fighter and let the Barbarian deal with his own chaos) FoB at times, to either knock prone or knock back as best suits, and when it's really sketchy, use FoB on 2 targets, then walk away, having negated their reactions.
A lot of what I am reading through this thread comes off as people who look at the wording and such, but haven't yet actually played the class to much extent, thus don't see and experience how the dynamics work. Sure the Monk could use some polishing of features and abilities to be a little more efficient, but the level of negativity displayed leads me to believe a huge min/max mentality combined with a lack of actual experience is driving it.
Monks are lots of fun, offer a good variety of abilities and utility to the group and are just as useful and effective as any other skirmishing class. (Open Hand for sure, likely some other subclasses too)
Open hand is for sure the best skirmish monk... It's just that the other subclasses aren't.
I think the best thing they could do for monk is give it the open hand stuff on the base class.
Then you give different subclass things that proc on FoB.
Also the difference to other things that reliably give enemies disadvantage is that the BA dodge still only works for one round and you just can't know whether you actually get attacked (and hit) during that round or not. It's far far more likely that you waste your resources and part of your action economy than other classes just casting Blur or whatever. In my experience spamming the BA dodge is the fastest way to waste all your Ki points for little to no gain as Monk.
The math does not support this argument.
To start with, Blur is an action so that is an unfair comparison unless you can get it off with metamagic. It is also a 2nd level slot and there is no level where any class will have more 2nd level slots a day than a monk has ki per day or even any level where blur using 2nd level slots will generally cause disadvantage for more rounds of combat than ki will (considering short rests). Even if you do not consider truesight, you are still behind because you never have more than 3 2nd level slots. While blur can last more than 1 round, it never lasts more than one fight (which typically is 4 rounds), it never can be cast more than 3 times a day and it ends early on a failed con save. Unless you upcast it, blur will cover you for 3 fights a day MAX, even at 20th level, so that is in general 12 rounds of disadvantage per day. A Monk has enough ki to beat that at any level after 4th.
As far as burning your ki; goes: "Spamming" patient defense at level 6 will mean you are dodging most of the time as a Monk. It takes 6 rounds to use 6 ki on patient defense, so that is 6 rounds per short rest you are dodging. Most combats last 3-5 rounds and generally RAW you should average 2 combats per SR (although there are more tables below this baseline than above it). So if you assume 8 rounds of combat per SR, that means if you are "spamming" patient defense and using it every round it should be active about 75% of the time while you are in combat at 6th level and this goes up after that. At 10th level if you "spam" PD, on average enemies will ALWAYS have disadvantage after your first turn in combat. After 10th level, if you use it every single turn and stick to the guidelines on SRs, you will usually not run out, even using it every turn.
That said I would not suggest that you should "spam" patient defense every tunr. You can usually (not always) predict when you are likely to be attacked or at the very least when are likely to be targeted by multiple attacks. If you need to plug a hole and tank, then yes use patient defense, if you have blur use that. Or better yet use an action to cast mirror image and then use PD. That is what those abilities/spells are for.
When it comes to ki, you should use patient defense when it makes sense to use patient defense, you should use step of the wind when it makes sense to use step of the wind, you should use flurry of blows when that makes sense, you should use stunning strike or any of your resources when it makes sense to use them.
My base point here is people tend to use flurry of blows A LOT, even though it very RARELY makes sense to use it and it is almost NEVER a better use of ki than PD is. There are occasions when FOB is a better use than PD, but that is very rare. Patient defense in general is a far better use of your ki, particularly when you spend it wisely based on the actual situation you are presented with.
If you purposely waste your ki, like most players do, that makes the class substantially weaker and that is why most players see this class as weak.
I mean you can math out a hypothetical adventuring day as much as you want, but in my experience I get a LOT more out of Blur or BA Disengage or a subclass ability than spending my valuable Ki points on a one turn BA dodge. Using it is in my experience the easiest and fastest way to "purposely waste your ki", even more so than spamming FOB. It's just not reliable enough for the opportunity cost and the literal cost.
I am no stranger to blur in melee. I have played more bladesingers that use blur as their typical opening spell than I have any other class. In my experience you get a lot less out of blur than a monk of equal level can get out of ki, especially at level 10+ where a lot of enemies see through illusions easily and/or counterspell you when you try to cast blur. If you are not getting regular disadvantage with your monk it is because you are using your bonus action or your ki for something else.
Bonus action disengage is a different ability all together, but a Monk can do that too as an alternative and do it very often.
Now if you are wasting ki on FO,B then sure you cant do those things. But at level 10 you have 10 ki per short rest, that is a lot of ki to spend. That is generally more than 1 ki every single round you are fighting, which means you can bonus action dodge OR bonus action disengage OR Bonus action dash OR stunning strike essentially "at will" once per round. Now if you do more than one of those per round you will run out, but if you do 1 per round you will never run out unless your table gets abnormally few short rests or has abnormally long fights. Even in that case you might technically run out, but you will have it most of the time, enough that it should be considered the "normal" and it will be rare that you can't do it.
That is without using an action like you need to do for blur. If we really are comparing to blur, the monk can just use his action to dodge the first turn and not even burn a ki at all that turn.
Not to mention that you don't need to go out of a fight completely unharmed. If you already plan to take a short rest and have hit dice or other ways of healing left then it's fine to take some hits. Patient Defense is something you should use when you are completely out of options and more damage isn't going to save you but surviving one more round might (because your friends are there or so).
The resource cost is upside down here. You only get back half your hit dice per day, so you can't really spam them after every battle unless you have multiple days with long rests and no fights. At level 6 you can use 3 hit dice all day for a sustained period. That is about 2 hits at that level (less with a low constitution). Even at level 10 that is still less than 1 hit dice per battle you can spend without consecutive down days.
For comparison at 6th level you get nominally 18ki per day vs 3 hit dice per day. So in terms of resource value 1 hit die =6 ki. With a 16 constitution each hit dice is worth 7 hps. That means if your ki will save you more than 1 hp in damage it is a better economical value to use the ki and save the HD. Even if you assume you get 2 long rests after every single adventuring day, each hit dice is still worth 3 ki at 6th level.
Now there is other healing available, aside from hit dice. But there is far more ki available than there are spell slots. If your ki is going to save 5 hps damage, then statistically it is far, far better to use a ki than it is to use a spell to get that damage back after the fight.
The only time this would not hold is if you have a ton of potions or other healing on hand such that there is no significant resource cost to heal between fights.
The only reason to spend Ki on Patient defense is to encourage enemies to ignore you for a round, or keep you up for a round while you manipulate an important object or stabilize a dying comrade or something equally niche. That’s it. If that’s what you really, really need then it’ll make your day. But otherwise… meh, not worth it. The free BA attack is a better option for your BA most of the time.
The only reason to spend Ki on Patient defense is to encourage enemies to ignore you for a round, or keep you up for a round while you manipulate an important object or stabilize a dying comrade or something equally niche. That’s it. If that’s what you really, really need then it’ll make your day. But otherwise… meh, not worth it. The free BA attack is a better option for your BA most of the time.
People keep saying things like this, but I feel like you're forgetting the Drunken Master's Tipsy Sway; Patient Defence is fantastic for that because you can make an enemy more likely to miss you so you can auto-hit another enemy instead, which is great if your enemies have stronger attacks than you do. 😝
That said, I've used Patient Defence plenty of times, but I use it for a few main ways:
What I call "isolation tanking" which is where you use your speed to engage enemies far enough away from your party that they have no incentive to move away from you, i.e- their choice is attacking you with disadvantage, or losing at least one turn trying to get to something else. This lets you keep them on you, while you whittle them down away from the others.
Facing hordes. This is for the majority of Monk sub-classes that don't really have any good anti-horde attacks (such as breath weapons and the like), as your aim is to have the horde attacking you while another party member thins their numbers enough to deal with. Patient Defence should save you from most a horde's attacks, and those that get through probably won't hurt that bad, so it's a good option that still lets you working on picking some off yourself.
One-on-one fight; against a strong opponent sometimes it's better to play it safe and defend yourself than burn Ki on trying to get an stun in early. I often prefer to try for a stun on the two normal attacks, then patient defence to stand a better chance of getting another two in the next turn, rather than dumping the same amount of Ki into a Flurry of Blows and risking more damage in return (because this can still fail, and the enemy's attacks have no penalty). Basically the way I think of it is that going hard means you're also maximising your opponent's attacks, while going slow means they're weaker. There's a bit of a balancing act here though depending upon what you're actually fighting.
When you know a lot of attacks are coming your way; this kind of overlaps with some of the above, but the example I like to consider is when you're stepping out into a possible firing line of enemy archers or whatever; contrary to the name you can only use Deflect Missiles against one projectile per round, so the fewer that hit you, the more likely you are to block them all. Now I could just Dodge as an action in this case, but then what else can I do with my turn? Using Patient Defence keeps the action free to use for anything I like once I know the situation. This also applies for any kind of possible trap (if you think it might be attack based).
Because I feel like it. Doesn't always pay off, but sometimes it just seems like the right thing to do.
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The only reason to spend Ki on Patient defense is to encourage enemies to ignore you for a round, or keep you up for a round while you manipulate an important object or stabilize a dying comrade or something equally niche. That’s it. If that’s what you really, really need then it’ll make your day. But otherwise… meh, not worth it. The free BA attack is a better option for your BA most of the time.
People keep saying things like this, but I feel like you're forgetting the Drunken Master's Tipsy Sway; Patient Defence is fantastic for that because you can make an enemy more likely to miss you so you can auto-hit another enemy instead, which is great if your enemies have stronger attacks than you do. 😝
That said, I've used Patient Defence plenty of times, but I use it for a few main ways:
What I call "isolation tanking" which is where you use your speed to engage enemies far enough away from your party that they have no incentive to move away from you, i.e- their choice is attacking you with disadvantage, or losing at least one turn trying to get to something else. This lets you keep them on you, while you whittle them down away from the others.
Facing hordes. This is for the majority of Monk sub-classes that aren't that don't really have any good anti-horde attacks (such as breath weapons and the like), as your aim is to have the horde attacking you while another party member thins their numbers enough to deal with. Patient Defence should save you from most a horde's attacks, and those that get through probably won't hurt that bad, so it's a good option that still lets you working on picking some off yourself.
One-on-one fight; against a strong opponent sometimes it's better to play it safe and defend yourself than burn Ki on trying to get an stun in early. I often prefer to try for a stun on the two normal attacks, then patient defence to stand a better chance of getting another two in the next turn, rather than dumping the same amount of Ki into a Flurry of Blows and risking more damage in return (because this can still fail, and the enemy's attacks have no penalty). Basically the way I think of it is that going hard means you're also maximising your opponent's attacks, while going slow means they're weaker. There's a bit of a balancing act here though depending upon what you're actually fighting.
When you know a lot of attacks are coming your way; this kind of overlaps with some of the above, but the example I like to consider is when you're stepping out into a possible firing line of enemy archers or whatever; contrary to the name you can only use Deflect Missiles against one projectile per round, so the fewer that hit you, the more likely you are to block them all. Now I could just Dodge as an action in this case, but then what else can I do with my turn? Using Patient Defence keeps the action free to use for anything I like once I know the situation. This also applies for any kind of possible trap (if you think it might be attack based).
Because I feel like it. Doesn't always pay off, but sometimes it just seems like the right thing to do.
The stun attempt on the two first attacks and then using Patient Defense if they fail isn't a bad idea for something you really don't want attacking someone else. If you do manage to stun on one of those then it's not needed but it's good to have an option.
You might get lucky and they run and you can try to stun again off turn with an AoO as well.
Basically I never use it unless my other plans have failed lol
The only reason to spend Ki on Patient defense is to encourage enemies to ignore you for a round, or keep you up for a round while you manipulate an important object or stabilize a dying comrade or something equally niche. That’s it. If that’s what you really, really need then it’ll make your day. But otherwise… meh, not worth it. The free BA attack is a better option for your BA most of the time.
People keep saying things like this, but I feel like you're forgetting the Drunken Master's Tipsy Sway; Patient Defence is fantastic for that because you can make an enemy more likely to miss you so you can auto-hit another enemy instead, which is great if your enemies have stronger attacks than you do. 😝
That said, I've used Patient Defence plenty of times, but I use it for a few main ways:
What I call "isolation tanking" which is where you use your speed to engage enemies far enough away from your party that they have no incentive to move away from you, i.e- their choice is attacking you with disadvantage, or losing at least one turn trying to get to something else. This lets you keep them on you, while you whittle them down away from the others.
Facing hordes. This is for the majority of Monk sub-classes that don't really have any good anti-horde attacks (such as breath weapons and the like), as your aim is to have the horde attacking you while another party member thins their numbers enough to deal with. Patient Defence should save you from most a horde's attacks, and those that get through probably won't hurt that bad, so it's a good option that still lets you working on picking some off yourself.
One-on-one fight; against a strong opponent sometimes it's better to play it safe and defend yourself than burn Ki on trying to get an stun in early. I often prefer to try for a stun on the two normal attacks, then patient defence to stand a better chance of getting another two in the next turn, rather than dumping the same amount of Ki into a Flurry of Blows and risking more damage in return (because this can still fail, and the enemy's attacks have no penalty). Basically the way I think of it is that going hard means you're also maximising your opponent's attacks, while going slow means they're weaker. There's a bit of a balancing act here though depending upon what you're actually fighting.
When you know a lot of attacks are coming your way; this kind of overlaps with some of the above, but the example I like to consider is when you're stepping out into a possible firing line of enemy archers or whatever; contrary to the name you can only use Deflect Missiles against one projectile per round, so the fewer that hit you, the more likely you are to block them all. Now I could just Dodge as an action in this case, but then what else can I do with my turn? Using Patient Defence keeps the action free to use for anything I like once I know the situation. This also applies for any kind of possible trap (if you think it might be attack based).
Because I feel like it. Doesn't always pay off, but sometimes it just seems like the right thing to do.
I had listed two main reasons to use Patient Defense:
1. When you want them to not attack you at all for a turn and target someone else instead. 2. When you absolutely need it, probably in a niche scenario.
For the most part I standby my statement, but I will add a couple more reasons:
3. When the enemies (or the DM) are stupid (or patronizing you). 4. The other PCs (or players) don’t like your character.
Here’s why…:
Yes, I did forget about the drunken master, but this will likely fall under my 3rd reason to use Patient Defense since only an idiot would fall for that trick twice in a combat unless there is really abso-freaking-lutely nothing better to do. Otherwise it would default to reason 1 since the enemy is probably not an idiot.
Isolation Tanking: Probably falls under category 2, because if that’s your regular tactic then what the hells are the rest of your party doing most of the time.
Facing Hoards: This is another example of categories 1 or 3. After seeing the first attacker or two fail to your butterfly routine, then he rest of the hoard will either start ignoring you and go after other targets who are easier to hit, or they’re stupid (or the DM is or is patronizing you).
1 Vs 1: Ehh… only if this is a #2 (or 4) scenario…. Bear with me now. Why not, instead of floating like a butterfly round after round all by yourself, use that Dodge (or better get a Disengage) to lure your opponent closer to your allies so you can get backup in the fight? See my point?
When You Know You Gonna Get Hit: This is hopefully another example of #2 (or 4 depending on who’s attacking you 😂).
Just ‘Cause. Alright, I can’t argue with that one I guess. 🤷♂️
I should have added actually, but a lot of the time I also found myself using Patient Defence instead of Disengage; while it's less reliable for this purpose, it also protects against more than just the opportunity attacks, specifically, it works against enemy attacks in their own turn.
This matters if you want to disengage to get to someone like an ally in trouble or a juicy target, but who is within threat range of enemies (the same ones, or others); avoiding an attack of opportunity is nice, but it's less consolation if the same or different enemies just attack you on their own turn and you get hit then instead.
If you've got the room to take Mobile then this is less of an issue since you can disengage essentially for free, but being attacked in the enemy turns is still a potential concern, you just need to weigh it up as normal (it's no longer helping you to disengage, so might be less valuable again). These days I prefer Crusher personally, in which case you can only pseudo disengage from one enemy for free, though if an ally's in danger I'd usually be more likely to use that ability to try to pseudo disengage them instead, so bonus action Disengage or Patient Defence can still be good in that case.
I'd also say that accusing the enemies/DM of being stupid or patronizing seems extreme; while it's true that enemies should behave at least somewhat logically, making yourself harder to hit doesn't mean you're automatically no longer their best target. This is why I've found myself using "isolation tanking", because a Monk doesn't have other ways to force enemies to attack them (and Patient Defence somewhat discourages it) but a wasted turn is a pretty good incentive, and if it keeps enemies away from the rest of the party so they have fewer to deal with then it serves the purpose; it's classic divide and conquer. The same applies to the horde example, except that hordes are as likely to attack you because there's no room to attack anyone else (there's a limit to how many can simultaneously attack the half naked Bard that set them off in the first place 😉).
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The only reason to spend Ki on Patient defense is to encourage enemies to ignore you for a round, or keep you up for a round while you manipulate an important object or stabilize a dying comrade or something equally niche. That’s it. If that’s what you really, really need then it’ll make your day.
Having an enemy ignore me while I wail on them is not a winning strategy for them generally.
I mean if I have 10 ki are you as DM going to ignore me for 10 stright turns while I am use patient defense and continue to hit you? At some point they are going to have to attack me if they want to win and that point will not come while they are alive if they wait for me to run out of ki to do it.
RAW patient defenses causes disadvantage when enemies attack you, which true to its word puts the enemies at a "disadvantage" if they attack you. If the DM never attacks you while you are using PD, then this changes it from disadvantage on attacks to effectively immunity from attacks and that makes the ability OP. It makes it more useful not less useful.
The only reason to spend Ki on Patient defense is to encourage enemies to ignore you for a round, or keep you up for a round while you manipulate an important object or stabilize a dying comrade or something equally niche. That’s it. If that’s what you really, really need then it’ll make your day. But otherwise… meh, not worth it. The free BA attack is a better option for your BA most of the time.
People keep saying things like this, but I feel like you're forgetting the Drunken Master's Tipsy Sway; Patient Defence is fantastic for that because you can make an enemy more likely to miss you so you can auto-hit another enemy instead, which is great if your enemies have stronger attacks than you do. 😝
That said, I've used Patient Defence plenty of times, but I use it for a few main ways:
What I call "isolation tanking" which is where you use your speed to engage enemies far enough away from your party that they have no incentive to move away from you, i.e- their choice is attacking you with disadvantage, or losing at least one turn trying to get to something else. This lets you keep them on you, while you whittle them down away from the others.
Facing hordes. This is for the majority of Monk sub-classes that aren't that don't really have any good anti-horde attacks (such as breath weapons and the like), as your aim is to have the horde attacking you while another party member thins their numbers enough to deal with. Patient Defence should save you from most a horde's attacks, and those that get through probably won't hurt that bad, so it's a good option that still lets you working on picking some off yourself.
One-on-one fight; against a strong opponent sometimes it's better to play it safe and defend yourself than burn Ki on trying to get an stun in early. I often prefer to try for a stun on the two normal attacks, then patient defence to stand a better chance of getting another two in the next turn, rather than dumping the same amount of Ki into a Flurry of Blows and risking more damage in return (because this can still fail, and the enemy's attacks have no penalty). Basically the way I think of it is that going hard means you're also maximising your opponent's attacks, while going slow means they're weaker. There's a bit of a balancing act here though depending upon what you're actually fighting.
When you know a lot of attacks are coming your way; this kind of overlaps with some of the above, but the example I like to consider is when you're stepping out into a possible firing line of enemy archers or whatever; contrary to the name you can only use Deflect Missiles against one projectile per round, so the fewer that hit you, the more likely you are to block them all. Now I could just Dodge as an action in this case, but then what else can I do with my turn? Using Patient Defence keeps the action free to use for anything I like once I know the situation. This also applies for any kind of possible trap (if you think it might be attack based).
Because I feel like it. Doesn't always pay off, but sometimes it just seems like the right thing to do.
The stun attempt on the two first attacks and then using Patient Defense if they fail isn't a bad idea for something you really don't want attacking someone else. If you do manage to stun on one of those then it's not needed but it's good to have an option.
You might get lucky and they run and you can try to stun again off turn with an AoO as well.
Basically I never use it unless my other plans have failed lol
This depends on the enemy.
The biggest problem with stun is the enemy saves against it are typically pretty good even for mediocre CR appropriate monsters and they are even better on bosses where the stun would be most effective.
Stunning strike is OP going nova to kill legendary saves on bosses - you can blow 10 ki in 2 turns to try 8 stunning strikes in the hopes you can run him out of 3 legendaries so your wizard can hit with a crowd pleaser. There is no other class in the game that can do that as effectively and quickly but you are burning everything to do that.
In most other cases though stunning strike is going to work best against minions who will likely die in a couple turns anyway. Still worth it sometimes, but not usually a game changer.
The only reason to spend Ki on Patient defense is to encourage enemies to ignore you for a round, or keep you up for a round while you manipulate an important object or stabilize a dying comrade or something equally niche. That’s it. If that’s what you really, really need then it’ll make your day.
Having an enemy ignore me while I wail on them is not a winning strategy for them generally.
I mean if I have 10 ki are you as DM going to ignore me for 10 stright turns while I am use patient defense and continue to hit you? At some point they are going to have to attack me if they want to win and that point will not come while they are alive if they wait for me to run out of ki to do it.
RAW patient defenses causes disadvantage when enemies attack you, which true to its word puts the enemies at a "disadvantage" if they attack you. If the DM never attacks you while you are using PD, then this changes it from disadvantage on attacks to effectively immunity from attacks and that makes the ability OP. It makes it more useful not less useful.
As long as you’re using Patient Defense you aren’t wailing on me with FoB or SS. That means you’re hitting with pillows compared to the Sharpshooter Howitzer, the EB spamming gattling Warlock, and the walking sledgehammer with PAM & GWM. That means I can focus on those hitting harder than you until you and your pillows are all that’s left and you’re out of Ki because you spent it all on being the least attractive target in the room.
The only reason to spend Ki on Patient defense is to encourage enemies to ignore you for a round, or keep you up for a round while you manipulate an important object or stabilize a dying comrade or something equally niche. That’s it. If that’s what you really, really need then it’ll make your day.
Having an enemy ignore me while I wail on them is not a winning strategy for them generally.
I mean if I have 10 ki are you as DM going to ignore me for 10 stright turns while I am use patient defense and continue to hit you? At some point they are going to have to attack me if they want to win and that point will not come while they are alive if they wait for me to run out of ki to do it.
RAW patient defenses causes disadvantage when enemies attack you, which true to its word puts the enemies at a "disadvantage" if they attack you. If the DM never attacks you while you are using PD, then this changes it from disadvantage on attacks to effectively immunity from attacks and that makes the ability OP. It makes it more useful not less useful.
As long as you’re using Patient Defense you aren’t wailing on me with FoB or SS. That means you’re hitting with pillows compared to the Sharpshooter Howitzer, the EB spamming gattling Warlock, and the walking sledgehammer with PAM & GWM. That means I can focus on those hitting harder than you until you and your pillows are all that’s left and you’re out of Ki because you spent it all on being the least attractive target in the room.
🤷♂️
I mean .. You aren't wrong
At best the monk is hitting for 21 damage a turn with a d10 weapon and max Dex at level 10.... And that's not accounting for AC at all. Once you do that number drops and it's not in the monks favor.
CR 10 creatures have 200+ HP. They can effectively ignore you for a while if you just attack and BA dodge.
Plus this is level 10 which 90% of games this is your max level.... imagine having half this ki points for the vast majority of your time in a campaign.
Besides which, I don’t have to completely ignore the pillowfighter when they’re floating like a butterfly and stinging like harsh words. That’s when my spellcaster just force saves on them while a couple of mooks tie them up and the heavy hitters can focus on the howitzer, the gattling gun, and the hammer.
I play an Open Hand Monk and we are 13th as of now. So far my ability to get into the fray, strike a couple times (stunning when it makes sense) and/or use Patient Defense to lower my chances of being hit, I find I help mitigate damage from the actual tanks in our group. Giving the enemy more options of targets to hit mitigates damage numerically, spreading it out and helping the Fighter and Barbarian stay up (usually I pair with the Fighter and let the Barbarian deal with his own chaos) FoB at times, to either knock prone or knock back as best suits, and when it's really sketchy, use FoB on 2 targets, then walk away, having negated their reactions.
A lot of what I am reading through this thread comes off as people who look at the wording and such, but haven't yet actually played the class to much extent, thus don't see and experience how the dynamics work. Sure the Monk could use some polishing of features and abilities to be a little more efficient, but the level of negativity displayed leads me to believe a huge min/max mentality combined with a lack of actual experience is driving it.
Monks are lots of fun, offer a good variety of abilities and utility to the group and are just as useful and effective as any other skirmishing class. (Open Hand for sure, likely some other subclasses too)
Well the level of negativity is that monks keep getting over looked and ignored. In Tasha's Coldin of everything they gutted features form one of the monk sub classes and added a few features that didn't fix the problems.
You can but a Band-Aid on a broken leg and give the person a gold star and it isn't going to help them get better in the end. The leg is still broken. The issue is that the monk is bad at being a back liner because you can't effectively do anything in the back line while not being able to do anything effective as a front liner.
The real insult to injury is anything the monk can do another class can do better. It used to be that the monk class at least had the ranger class at be bad with now it is just the monk class. Yes, the DM can polish this turd but why do they have to all the other classes except ranger which was very class specific were great choices from the players hand book even Artificer and Blood Hunter are decent.
Question do you get to attack with reach weapons in your campaign? Has your DM made any changes to the rules to make your creature more relevant and impactful or are you playing rules as written?
The issues is that monks rules as written are better as ranged fighters then frontliners rules as written.
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But what is the threat from taking an AoO from a monk? your single attack is weak damage and then you can ATTEMPT a stun but its not sure to work and once again burning ki.
17 dpr is very bad damage....like bottom tier damage for a martial at that level. A rouge is doing that fairly easily with no resource spend and can just...leave if they want with BA disengage. A warlock with just EB + agonizing is beating that most of the time. As a monk at this level you have 6 ki which is hardly anything...
A smart enemy will just ignore you if you dodge and attack your friends because you pose no real threat with your weak dpr with just the basic attack action.
And monks AC is terrible and tanking as a monk is generally a terrible idea (see here https://youtu.be/Aaqq7iZUmMk?t=679)
And the whole "use it when it makes sense" argument is kinda...weird? Because your opportunity cost to using a dodge or dash as a bonus action is stunning strike...and its just better most of the time. Shutting down a whole enemy turn>>>>>>>DIS on attacks against just you. Technically you can do both but thats just going to burn your ki.
Overall monk suffers from this "jack of all trades, master of none" approach to combat as they can do a lot of things ok but nothing good. They are mediocre damage (just bad after level 11), poor tanks (low hp, AC compared to martials, no real reason to attack them), and their mobility is good...but what do you do with it? Their only strength is stunning strike but it hamstrings you into just using it and saving ki to attempt it all the time.
Agreed.... Dashing as a BA is generally better and will make better use of your speed and positioning much more than a dodge.
If I were playing with a monk as a martial I would try to bait reactions from creatures so the monk can speed off without AoO.
I play an Open Hand Monk and we are 13th as of now. So far my ability to get into the fray, strike a couple times (stunning when it makes sense) and/or use Patient Defense to lower my chances of being hit, I find I help mitigate damage from the actual tanks in our group. Giving the enemy more options of targets to hit mitigates damage numerically, spreading it out and helping the Fighter and Barbarian stay up (usually I pair with the Fighter and let the Barbarian deal with his own chaos) FoB at times, to either knock prone or knock back as best suits, and when it's really sketchy, use FoB on 2 targets, then walk away, having negated their reactions.
A lot of what I am reading through this thread comes off as people who look at the wording and such, but haven't yet actually played the class to much extent, thus don't see and experience how the dynamics work. Sure the Monk could use some polishing of features and abilities to be a little more efficient, but the level of negativity displayed leads me to believe a huge min/max mentality combined with a lack of actual experience is driving it.
Monks are lots of fun, offer a good variety of abilities and utility to the group and are just as useful and effective as any other skirmishing class. (Open Hand for sure, likely some other subclasses too)
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
In casual play? Sure. Just about any class can fight in the front line if the combat isn't too hard.
But in groups that take combat more seriously, monks are not meant to be front line fighters.
Monks are meant to be skirmishers, going after opponents who need disrupting like mages and archers, distracting enemies to break up their formations, and escaping if they ever get in too against heavy melee opponents.
Whether or not monks are properly equipped for that task is another question.
Open hand is for sure the best skirmish monk... It's just that the other subclasses aren't.
I think the best thing they could do for monk is give it the open hand stuff on the base class.
Then you give different subclass things that proc on FoB.
I am no stranger to blur in melee. I have played more bladesingers that use blur as their typical opening spell than I have any other class. In my experience you get a lot less out of blur than a monk of equal level can get out of ki, especially at level 10+ where a lot of enemies see through illusions easily and/or counterspell you when you try to cast blur. If you are not getting regular disadvantage with your monk it is because you are using your bonus action or your ki for something else.
Bonus action disengage is a different ability all together, but a Monk can do that too as an alternative and do it very often.
Now if you are wasting ki on FO,B then sure you cant do those things. But at level 10 you have 10 ki per short rest, that is a lot of ki to spend. That is generally more than 1 ki every single round you are fighting, which means you can bonus action dodge OR bonus action disengage OR Bonus action dash OR stunning strike essentially "at will" once per round. Now if you do more than one of those per round you will run out, but if you do 1 per round you will never run out unless your table gets abnormally few short rests or has abnormally long fights. Even in that case you might technically run out, but you will have it most of the time, enough that it should be considered the "normal" and it will be rare that you can't do it.
That is without using an action like you need to do for blur. If we really are comparing to blur, the monk can just use his action to dodge the first turn and not even burn a ki at all that turn.
The resource cost is upside down here. You only get back half your hit dice per day, so you can't really spam them after every battle unless you have multiple days with long rests and no fights. At level 6 you can use 3 hit dice all day for a sustained period. That is about 2 hits at that level (less with a low constitution). Even at level 10 that is still less than 1 hit dice per battle you can spend without consecutive down days.
For comparison at 6th level you get nominally 18ki per day vs 3 hit dice per day. So in terms of resource value 1 hit die =6 ki. With a 16 constitution each hit dice is worth 7 hps. That means if your ki will save you more than 1 hp in damage it is a better economical value to use the ki and save the HD. Even if you assume you get 2 long rests after every single adventuring day, each hit dice is still worth 3 ki at 6th level.
Now there is other healing available, aside from hit dice. But there is far more ki available than there are spell slots. If your ki is going to save 5 hps damage, then statistically it is far, far better to use a ki than it is to use a spell to get that damage back after the fight.
The only time this would not hold is if you have a ton of potions or other healing on hand such that there is no significant resource cost to heal between fights.
The only reason to spend Ki on Patient defense is to encourage enemies to ignore you for a round, or keep you up for a round while you manipulate an important object or stabilize a dying comrade or something equally niche. That’s it. If that’s what you really, really need then it’ll make your day. But otherwise… meh, not worth it. The free BA attack is a better option for your BA most of the time.
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People keep saying things like this, but I feel like you're forgetting the Drunken Master's Tipsy Sway; Patient Defence is fantastic for that because you can make an enemy more likely to miss you so you can auto-hit another enemy instead, which is great if your enemies have stronger attacks than you do. 😝
That said, I've used Patient Defence plenty of times, but I use it for a few main ways:
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The stun attempt on the two first attacks and then using Patient Defense if they fail isn't a bad idea for something you really don't want attacking someone else. If you do manage to stun on one of those then it's not needed but it's good to have an option.
You might get lucky and they run and you can try to stun again off turn with an AoO as well.
Basically I never use it unless my other plans have failed lol
I had listed two main reasons to use Patient Defense:
1. When you want them to not attack you at all for a turn and target someone else instead.
2. When you absolutely need it, probably in a niche scenario.
For the most part I standby my statement, but I will add a couple more reasons:
3. When the enemies (or the DM) are stupid (or patronizing you).
4. The other PCs (or players) don’t like your character.
Here’s why…:
Yes, I did forget about the drunken master, but this will likely fall under my 3rd reason to use Patient Defense since only an idiot would fall for that trick twice in a combat unless there is really abso-freaking-lutely nothing better to do. Otherwise it would default to reason 1 since the enemy is probably not an idiot.
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I should have added actually, but a lot of the time I also found myself using Patient Defence instead of Disengage; while it's less reliable for this purpose, it also protects against more than just the opportunity attacks, specifically, it works against enemy attacks in their own turn.
This matters if you want to disengage to get to someone like an ally in trouble or a juicy target, but who is within threat range of enemies (the same ones, or others); avoiding an attack of opportunity is nice, but it's less consolation if the same or different enemies just attack you on their own turn and you get hit then instead.
If you've got the room to take Mobile then this is less of an issue since you can disengage essentially for free, but being attacked in the enemy turns is still a potential concern, you just need to weigh it up as normal (it's no longer helping you to disengage, so might be less valuable again). These days I prefer Crusher personally, in which case you can only pseudo disengage from one enemy for free, though if an ally's in danger I'd usually be more likely to use that ability to try to pseudo disengage them instead, so bonus action Disengage or Patient Defence can still be good in that case.
I'd also say that accusing the enemies/DM of being stupid or patronizing seems extreme; while it's true that enemies should behave at least somewhat logically, making yourself harder to hit doesn't mean you're automatically no longer their best target. This is why I've found myself using "isolation tanking", because a Monk doesn't have other ways to force enemies to attack them (and Patient Defence somewhat discourages it) but a wasted turn is a pretty good incentive, and if it keeps enemies away from the rest of the party so they have fewer to deal with then it serves the purpose; it's classic divide and conquer. The same applies to the horde example, except that hordes are as likely to attack you because there's no room to attack anyone else (there's a limit to how many can simultaneously attack the half naked Bard that set them off in the first place 😉).
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Having an enemy ignore me while I wail on them is not a winning strategy for them generally.
I mean if I have 10 ki are you as DM going to ignore me for 10 stright turns while I am use patient defense and continue to hit you? At some point they are going to have to attack me if they want to win and that point will not come while they are alive if they wait for me to run out of ki to do it.
RAW patient defenses causes disadvantage when enemies attack you, which true to its word puts the enemies at a "disadvantage" if they attack you. If the DM never attacks you while you are using PD, then this changes it from disadvantage on attacks to effectively immunity from attacks and that makes the ability OP. It makes it more useful not less useful.
This depends on the enemy.
The biggest problem with stun is the enemy saves against it are typically pretty good even for mediocre CR appropriate monsters and they are even better on bosses where the stun would be most effective.
Stunning strike is OP going nova to kill legendary saves on bosses - you can blow 10 ki in 2 turns to try 8 stunning strikes in the hopes you can run him out of 3 legendaries so your wizard can hit with a crowd pleaser. There is no other class in the game that can do that as effectively and quickly but you are burning everything to do that.
In most other cases though stunning strike is going to work best against minions who will likely die in a couple turns anyway. Still worth it sometimes, but not usually a game changer.
The battle master can also impose several saving throws, though not as powerful as the monk's stunning strike.
As long as you’re using Patient Defense you aren’t wailing on me with FoB or SS. That means you’re hitting with pillows compared to the Sharpshooter Howitzer, the EB spamming gattling Warlock, and the walking sledgehammer with PAM & GWM. That means I can focus on those hitting harder than you until you and your pillows are all that’s left and you’re out of Ki because you spent it all on being the least attractive target in the room.
🤷♂️
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I mean .. You aren't wrong
At best the monk is hitting for 21 damage a turn with a d10 weapon and max Dex at level 10.... And that's not accounting for AC at all. Once you do that number drops and it's not in the monks favor.
CR 10 creatures have 200+ HP. They can effectively ignore you for a while if you just attack and BA dodge.
Plus this is level 10 which 90% of games this is your max level.... imagine having half this ki points for the vast majority of your time in a campaign.
Besides which, I don’t have to completely ignore the pillowfighter when they’re floating like a butterfly and stinging like harsh words. That’s when my spellcaster just force saves on them while a couple of mooks tie them up and the heavy hitters can focus on the howitzer, the gattling gun, and the hammer.
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Well the level of negativity is that monks keep getting over looked and ignored. In Tasha's Coldin of everything they gutted features form one of the monk sub classes and added a few features that didn't fix the problems.
You can but a Band-Aid on a broken leg and give the person a gold star and it isn't going to help them get better in the end. The leg is still broken. The issue is that the monk is bad at being a back liner because you can't effectively do anything in the back line while not being able to do anything effective as a front liner.
The real insult to injury is anything the monk can do another class can do better. It used to be that the monk class at least had the ranger class at be bad with now it is just the monk class. Yes, the DM can polish this turd but why do they have to all the other classes except ranger which was very class specific were great choices from the players hand book even Artificer and Blood Hunter are decent.
Question do you get to attack with reach weapons in your campaign? Has your DM made any changes to the rules to make your creature more relevant and impactful or are you playing rules as written?
The issues is that monks rules as written are better as ranged fighters then frontliners rules as written.